Kid Icarus: Uprising
Kid Icarus: Uprising (新・光神話　パルテナの鏡 Shin Hikari Shinwa Parutena no Kagami, lit. "New Light Myth: Palutena's Mirror") is a (long awaited) sequel and revival of the Kid Icarus series that is published by Nintendo. It has taken a re-imagined 3D design of Pit and the enemies of the original NES game, though Pit and Palutena themselves are based off their Super Smash Bros. Brawl looks. Their character models are slightly downgraded from Super Smash Bros. Brawl due to the hardware limitation, but even so, the game itself seems very advanced graphic-wise for its system, the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo's newest portable. It was officially announced at E3 2010 that a new Kid Icarus game would be coming out for the new Nintendo 3DS. Project Sora is the developer, with Masahiro Sakurai as the lead designer. The game was released on March 22nd in Japan, March 23rd in the US and Europe, and March 29th in Australia. Story Uprising is a direct sequel to the classic NES game, and takes place 25 (24 in the Japanese version) years after the original Kid Icarus. Medusa has been revived, and once again attempts to eradicate the humans while trying to take revenge on Pit and Palutena. Upon learning of this, Palutena has recalled her most loyal servant, Pit, to stop Medusa and her Underworld Army, and restore peace to Skyworld once more. Along the way, Pit will encounter many new characters and enemies in the greatly expanded Kid Icarus universe. The story mode will also be divided into separate chapters that each represent a stage. Each stage usually comprises of an Air Battle, a Ground Mission and a Boss Battle. Minibosses may sometimes pop up during the Air Battles or Ground Mission segments. *Chapter 1: The Return of Palutena *Chapter 2: Magnus and the Dark Lord *Chapter 3: Heads of the Hewdraw *Chapter 4: The Reaper's Line of Sight *Chapter 5: Pandora's Labyrinth of Deceit *Chapter 6: Dark Pit *Chapter 7: The Seafloor Palace *Chapter 8: The Space-Pirate Ship *Chapter 9: Medusa's Final Battle *Chapter 10: The Wish Seed *Chapter 11: Viridi, Goddess of Nature *Chapter 12: Wrath of the Reset Bomb *Chapter 13: The Lunar Sanctum *Chapter 14: Lightning Battle *Chapter 15: Mysterious Invaders *Chapter 16: The Aurum Hive *Chapter 17: The Aurum Brain *Chapter 18: The Ring of Chaos *Chapter 19: The Lightning Chariot *Chapter 20: Palutena's Temple *Chapter 21: The Chaos Vortex *Chapter 22: Scorched Feathers *Chapter 23: Lord of the Underworld *Chapter 24':' The Three Trials *Chapter 25':' The War's End Gameplay Modes Like its predecessors, Uprising is largely shoot 'em up based, but now with an upgraded game system with numerous weapons to choose from and is now a third/first person shooter game. Solo The solo (aka single player) mode is where the main game and its story will take place. Before starting a chapter, you will be able to put hearts into the Fiend's Cauldron to increase the intensity level. The more hearts put into the cauldron, the better the rewards within the chapters. However, the difficulty level will also rise in accordance to the amount of hearts put into the cauldron. Each chapter of the story is divided into three sections: Air Battle In this game, Pit is granted the Power of Flight from Palutena, giving him the ability to fly for a limited amount of time (specifically 5 minutes at the most) . The areas where this ability is used resemble a free-aiming flight mode as seen in titles such as Panzer Dragoon and Omega Boost, where Pit can fly in one direction and aim in another, reminiscent of the Palace in the Sky in the original Kid Icarus. While flying, Palutena will control Pit's general movement (where he flies), but most of the dodging and attacking is left to Pit to handle. But as the trailer states, Pit can only maintain flight for five minutes at a time, after that Pit's wings will burn out and he will fall. Ground Mission In a ground mission, Pit has to continuously move forward by solving simple puzzles, overcoming hordes of enemies, etc. These ground sections will make up most of the game. In this segment, Pit's movement is entirely left up to the player. Boss Battles At the end of every chapter, Pit will face off with a boss character. These range from fighting massive monsters such as Twinbellows, to battling other major characters like Dark Lord Gaol. In some cases, such as with Hewdraw, a portion of the boss fights might take place during the flying sections in addition to the land sections. The stage may also have mini bosses such as Dark Pit. Multiplayer Multiplayer Mode is split up into two play styles, Light Versus Dark and Free For All. In Light Versus Dark, players are split into teams of 3 and tasked to defeat opponent players. There is a team life gauge, which decreases with each death of a teammate. The amount of points it drops by is determined by the weapon value, thus, the higher the value, the more points will be lost. When the gauge has been fully depleted, the player's death who fully depleted the gauge becomes the Angel, which is Pit for the Light team and Dark Pit for the Dark team. From here on, the goal is to kill the Angel, which is harder than it looks, as Angels have increased health, attack power and defense. In Free For All, players are left to themselves to gain the highest amount of kills. AR Battles The game will also feature a AR Battle Mode, allowing players to see all characters, enemies, items, and weapons using AR cards and the Nintendo 3DS's dual cameras. With this mode, battles can be waged with different characters and enemies, each of which have their own stats and health bars. Items Multiple Items have been revealed during gameplay videos and in trailers. Hearts will make a return as items dropped by downed monsters. Treasure Boxes have also been seen containing items such as Food, Grenades, and Drinks of the Gods. Weapons Pit starts with a basic First Blade, but, as he progresses, Pit will gains a very large arsenal of powerful weapons that can be chosen from before each stage. Each weapon is able to perform melee, ranged, dash and charged attacks. In addition, each weapon has a special power attack that can clear the screen of most enemies and their projectiles. This attack type can only be used during the flight sequences, and when the blue orbs at the bottom touchscreen are full. Twelve different weapons are available for each category, and with 9 categories, Kid Icarus: Uprising boasts 108 weapons. Each with it's own distinctive traits. The weapon categories are as follows: *Bow - Weapons that shoot fast homing arrows that do decent damage. They are split into two blades for melee attacks. *Blade - Balanced weapons that are good for both ranged and melee. *Claws - Claws worn on both hands. They make the user faster, and the weapon's melee attack can be chained 5 times, but they have poor ranged ability. *Orbitars - Two floating orbs that fire two energy shots at multiple foes, or one shot at a single foe. Orbitars have a very high shot rate. *Arm - Bulky giant fisting like devices that Pit wears on his hands. Their impressive melee damage make up for their incompetency in ranged attacks. *Palm - A glowing tattoo around Pit's hand that uses Pit's vitality (not HP) to shoots shock-waves of energy. *Cannon - Large guns that Pit wears on his arm and is similar to Samus Aran's arm cannon in the Metroid series. These weapon's shots bounce off walls and floors and can hit multiple enemies with their explosions. However, they are very heavy and will slow the user down. *Staff - Spear-like staffs. They are like sniper rifles and their shots gain power over distance. However, they have no melee ability and do not have homing. *Club - Massive weapons that are the most powerful melee weapons in the game. Their melee chains can be stacked to a maximum of two blows, and their charged shots can pierce walls and obtrusions. Powers Powers are new weapons and abilities that Pit can use in battle. They can have different effects when used, ranging from unleashing powerful attacks to recovering Pit's health. Vehicles In addition to these weapons and abilities, Pit is able to utilize armed vehicles in battle and for transportation, which include a mech-like armor known as the Cherubot and a sphere-shaped vehicle known as the Aether Ring. Characters Characters and Voice Cast Unknown Characters * A young girl whose body Pit inhabits after his own is stolen. She plays no significant role outside of being a temporary host for Pit to move around in. * An unnamed dog that Pit also inhabits in place of his own body. Underworld Army The Underworld Army is unique in that it is primarily an aerial force, with most enemy creatures revealed so far being capable of flight or levitation. Enemies Returning Enemies * Daphne * Mik * Monoeye * Shemum * Ganewmede * Keron * Nettler * Octos * Specknose * Syren * Komayto * Commyloose * Monolith * Twinbellows * Hewdraw * Pandora * Thanatos * Eggplant Wizard * Reaper New Enemies * Tortolunk * Shelbo * Merenguy * Shildeen * Tempura Wizard * Souflee * Handora * Orne * Treasurefish * Crawler * Mega Mussel * Zurret Anime Before the release of the game, Nintendo started creating short 3D animation for the 3DS's Nintendo Video service with the help of three well known Japanese animation studios: Production I. G. , Studio 4°C and Shaft, Inc. *''Production I.G'' named its Kid Icarus animation, "Kid Icarus 3D Anime - Thanatos Rising" featuring Pit's battle against one of Medusa's minions, this video was separated into three parts. *''Studio 4°C'' named its video "Kid Icarus 3D Anime - Medusa's Revenge" showing the rise of Medusa, but ending the video right when Pit faces Medusa, this video was just one part altogether. *''Shaft. Inc'' produced "Kid Icarus 3D Anime - Palutena's Revolting Dinner". In this video, Lady Palutena has halted the vegetable's revolt to destroy Skyworld, but she faces many difficulties, this video was separated into two parts. References to Other Games Kid Icarus: Uprising makes many references to other games which are either owned by Nintendo, have been a third party member, or have made games with Nintendo. Interestly, all references are to series included in the fighting-crossover game Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Which Pit was also a playable character). The game is shown to break forth wall many times as well as referencing to other game universes. *'Super Mario Series' - Pit's health meter is shown to have a wing at the begining of it. This resembles the P-Wing from the Mario series and the formate is similar, except the wing is on the other side of the meter and the meter is split into small ticks of sorts. *'Metroid Series' - an enemy (Komayto) in the game resembles an alien species known as Metroids in their appearance and how they behave. Pit even says, "All I said were that Komaytos look like little Metr--" within the game but is shortly interrupted by Viridi stating, "That universe and this universe have nothing to do with each other!" Also, the idol description states a Metroid reference in that it says, "The last Komaytos are not in captivity and Skyworld is not at peace." *'Nintendogs Series - '''in Chapter 9, when Pit faces the Twinbellows, he says that he and Twinbellows will rack up a ton of Nintendog points together. *'Legend of Zelda Series - a hand enemy makes an appearance in this game, and this enemy resembles a Legend of Zelda enemy in movements and characteristics. *'Sonic the Hedgehog Series - '''Pit is shown to ride grind rails in this game, which is done many times by Sonic the Hedgehog within his series. This is also the same with the ''Ratchet and Clank series as Ratchet has started to use grind rails too. *'Donkey Kong Series - '''in Chapter 19, Pit will pass through a room with rolling spheres. While Pit is in the room, Hades says the Chariot Master must have been playing Donkey Kong, since he's rolling spheres down the path (just like Donkey Kong does with his barrels). *'Game and Watch Series -''' in Chapter 21, during the third wave of enemies, Pit says the Aurum troops are doing their best Game and Watch impression, since they are moving between spots instantly instead of moving normally. *'Star Fox Series -' a UFO-like enemy makes an appearance in this game, which resembles a UFO-like boss from Star Fox 64 and Star Fox 64 3D (the remake) in behavior and characteristics. *'''Brain Age Series - in Chapter 22, when Viridi, Dark Pit, and Palutena learn how the Underworld Army is made, Dark Pit says, "Your math is a little off. You better break out the Brain Age pal." According to Viridi, she has a brain age of 24. *'Nintendo Games -' if the player waits for a couple of minutes during the end screen, Hades will speak. He will say that Pit may be the most powerful Nintendo character of all time and will also say 8-bit Pit (reference to the 2 old games that were pixelated) wouldn't had made it this far. *'Other Kid Icarus Games -' it's stated many times that the old games used to be pixelated due to that being the current state of video games. An example is when Pit obtain the Three Sacred Treasures and Palutena says that they're less pixelated than she remembers. Trivia * The game often breaks the fourth wall for humor, such as stating that it's a game or labeling bosses as bosses. * Many references are made of Kid Icarus within the game and implies that the game's events are 25 years after the original. * This game appears to take place during the Ancient Roman or Greek period based on the style of clothes and architecture, though the characters often refer to modern apparatuses such as pizza delivery, video games, email, etc, likely as humor of the breaking-the-fourth-wall genre. * The Japanese cover art has Pit with his mouth open and smiling, but in the English his face is serious. * During the Land Battle sections of the chapters, if the player has certain weapon types equipped or go to certain areas, the characters featured in that chapter will banter with each other (often including Pit getting embarrassed or offended). * Coincidentally, Kid Icarus: Uprising came out around the same time as The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and both games are the 25th anniversary specials of their respective series. External Links * Official Website (Japanese) * Official Nintendo Page (English) * Official Website (English) * The trailer Category:Games Category:Kid Icarus: Uprising